The Maruta Seminar from the Faculty of Science and Engineering conducted a "special lecture" at Hachioji Municipal Minami-Osawa Junior High School, connecting junior high schools with companies.

On Monday, July 6th, Professor Shinsaku Maruta's seminar in the Faculty of Science and Engineering conducted a special lecture at Minami-Osawa Junior High School in Hachioji City, Tokyo, with the aim of having junior high school students be hired by local partner companies as "Hachioji CFOs (Chief Future Officers)." This initiative was planned by the seminar, inspired by the "CFO" initiative of BioPoly Joetsu Co., Ltd. (Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture), with which the seminar collaborates as part of its research activities, which aims to reflect the voices of future generations in management decision-making. This marks the first time that the CFO initiative has been implemented in Hachioji City.

The "CFO" project is an initiative in which companies hire children of the future generation to solicit ideas for management and research. In Japan, it began in 2018 when Euglena Co., Ltd. (Minato-ku, Tokyo), a biotechnology company, publicly recruited and appointed a CFO under the age of 18. As an innovative attempt to think about the future of companies together with the younger generation that will live in the future, several companies have since undertaken this initiative. "Hachioji CFO" is a regional collaboration type of CFO initiative, in which companies in Hachioji City hire students from the city as CFOs, aiming to promote regional development while co-creating the future of the company.

The seminar has previously engaged in practical learning that contributes to society, such as the effective utilization of by-products (rice flour) generated during the manufacturing process of "Takao no Tengu," a premium sake from Hachioji. In 2025, the seminar's interdisciplinary research activities were recognized by the city as a model project for STEAM education, and a special lecture on SDGs and a tasting event of "edible spoons" made from rice flour were held at Minami-Osawa Junior High School, a school promoting STEAM education. This collaboration led to the holding of this special lecture as a new career and inquiry program.

The goal of this project is for junior high school students to be hired as "Hachioji CFOs" by local partner companies and to take the lead in identifying and solving problems for local businesses. Currently, the project is collaborating with two companies that have previously interacted with the seminar through industry-academia collaboration activities: Magome Co., Ltd. (Hachioji City, Tokyo) and Workers' Co-op Center Business Group, Tokyo Santama Yamanashi Branch (same location). The students will develop ideas for social contribution with the flexible perspective unique to junior high school students. Starting with this special lecture, the aim is to cultivate the inquisitive spirit necessary for the coming era, which will enable students to connect ideas to businesses and change society. Furthermore, the seminar has been selected for the University Consortium Hachioji's "FY2026 Student Project Grant" under the theme of "Promoting STEAM Education through Collaboration between Local Companies and Universities in Hachioji City (Towards Hachioji as a Model City for STEAM Education)," and this project is one of the efforts toward achieving the project's objectives.

In this lecture, the seminar not only introduced the regional collaboration initiatives and the "Hachioji CFO" project that it has been working on, but also provided an explanation of the "biomolecular mechanisms" that the seminar is researching, and conducted group work in which students and junior high school students considered difficult challenges that companies actually face, fostering interaction between the junior high school students and the seminar students.

The students who served as instructors for this lecture gave the following feedback:
■Hiroshi Fujiwara (4th year student, Faculty of Science and Engineering)
I was impressed by the students' high level of motivation to actively absorb even university-level content. I hope that this lecture will give the junior high school students an opportunity to find new perspectives for their future.

■ Mai Watanabe (4th year, Faculty of Science and Engineering)
I was so happy to hear a comment from a junior high school student saying, "I thought it was wonderful to see how hard you were trying to explain the lecture content in an easy-to-understand way." I am filled with gratitude to everyone who made the lecture possible, and to Professor Maruta.

■ Marie Kaneda (3rd year, Faculty of Science and Engineering)
I was deeply moved by how attentively the junior high school students listened to the lecture and how actively they engaged in group discussions. It was a valuable experience that allowed me to rediscover the joy of communication, interact with junior high school students, and gain flexible thinking.

Last year, the same seminar group also conducted a special lecture and tasting session using "edible spoons" at the same junior high school. You can see what happened last year via the link and video below.
The video also touches on the research content and past activities of the Maruta Seminar. Please take a look.

[YouTube Video] "Developing an 'edible spoon' from rice flour that would have been thrown away!? Testing it in middle school lunches! | Soka University"

【Related Links】

Professor

Shinsaku Maruta

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Specialized Field

Biomolecular Science

Research theme

Development of light-driven biomolecular machines using photochromic molecules